Libertarian Party official resigns over racial slur

STATE COLLEGE, Pa. (AP) - A retired Penn State professor has resigned as chairman of the county Libertarian Party after an uproar over his use of a racial epithet on a political flier.

Julian Heicklen has said the use of the epithet was an attempt to show that students are treated poorly.

Heicklen told party members in an e-mail that he also has resigned from the party's state board of directors and as faculty adviser to the Penn State College Libertarians.

He said he will continue to campaign as the party's candidate for Centre County jury commissioner and Patton Township supervisor.

Last week, Heicklen distributed 300 fliers that compared the lack of students on county juries to the lack of blacks on Southern juries in the 1950s.

The fliers bore the headline "PSU Student As Nigger," apparently a reference to a 1960s-era book by Jerry Farber called "The Student as Nigger" that compared treatment of students to that accorded to African-Americans.

"The students are being treated here the exact way the blacks were in the 1950s except for the lynching," said Heicklen, who is white.